At the turn of the nineteenth century, James Vann, a Cherokee chief and entrepreneur, established Diamond Hill in Georgia, the most famous plantation in the southeastern Cherokee Nation. In this first full-length study to reconstruct the history of the plantation, Tiya Miles tells the story of Diamond Hill's founding, its flourishing, its takeover by white land-lottery winners on the eve of the Cherokee Removal, its decay, and ultimately its renovation in the 1950s.

This moving multiracial history sheds light on the various cultural communities that interacted within the plantation boundaries--from elite Cherokee slaveholders to Cherokee subsistence farmers, from black slaves of various ethnic backgrounds to free blacks from the North and South, from German-speaking Moravian missionaries to white southern skilled laborers. Moreover, the book includes rich portraits of the women of these various communities. Vividly written and extensively researched, this history illuminates gender, class, and cross-racial relationships on the southern frontier.

Tiya Miles is the Elsa Barkley Brown Collegiate Professor of African American Women’s History and professor of history, American culture, Afroamerican and African studies, and Native American studies at the University of Michigan. Her first book, Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom, won the Organization of American Historians' Turner Prize and the American Studies Association's Romero Prize. In 2011 she was selected as a MacArthur Foundation Fellow.

Reviews

"The only comprehensive book about life on the Vann Plantation from the perspective of examining not only Cherokee history . . . but also black history, the roles of Moravian missionaries and white history."--The Daily Citizen, Dalton, GA

"The fullest published portrait yet of slaves to the Cherokee."--The Defenders Online

"Miles paints the most detailed picture yet published of the lives of the black slaves to the Cherokee."--Bay State Banner

"Illustrates that Cherokee slavery differed significantly from that practiced by white Americans. . . . Slavery helped prove to the United States government that they [Cherokees] had acculturated and thus had become 'civilized.' Recommended."--Library Journal

"[Provides] rich detail from the newly translated diaries and letters of German missionaries."--Diverse Education

"[Miles'] book is accessible and well written, its story important. Highly recommended."--Choice